


There's No Escape

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bad Ending, Brief and vague mentions of gore, Captor POV, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Henry suffers for most of this actually, Hurt!Henry, I think (or at least something very similar), Stockholm Syndrome, everyone was so excited to see this continuation, or - Freeform, really depends on which side you're on, so enjoy this confusing mess of, so this is truly quite messed up, tagging a story like this is a bit hard honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 18:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13300347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: Bendy seemed to realize exactly what Henry was apologizing for, as he lunged forward even as Henry twisted to his his feet and ran.He was so close.At the same time, Henry and Bendy each reached out, one for the exit’s doorknob, the other for his Creator’s shirt.His hand made contact.Finally.Bendy caught him.





	There's No Escape

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Welcome to My Horror Show](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13045359) by [Star_Going_Supernova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova). 



> Whelp, here we go. This is a direct continuation from the optional Bad End of _Welcome to My Horror Show,_ so if you haven't read that yet, you probably should before reading this. 
> 
> Golly, I actually love this. It's the perfect amount of horror and fluff and it's all twisted up together. That being said: **please** keep in mind that this is a bit dark, as Bendy doesn't think he's doing anything wrong. 
> 
> Proceed with caution, and I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

“I’m sorry, Bendy,” Henry said, looking like he genuinely meant it.

But Bendy knew there was only one thing his Creator could be apologizing for. He lunged forward, a split second behind Henry as he twisted to his feet and ran towards freedom.

He couldn’t let his beloved Creator escape. They’d never get to save him if that happened.  

At the same time, Henry and Bendy each reached out, one for the exit’s doorknob, the other for his Creator’s shirt. 

Bendy’s fingers snagged the ink-stained fabric stretched across Henry’s back, and with only inches to spare, he pulled the man away from the door. 

 _Finally_.

He spun, putting himself between Henry and the outside world, capturing the man’s wrists in one of his hands. It visibly took Henry a moment to figure out what just happened, but when he did, he went tense and shaky. Bendy watched as he tried to pull back, tried to wriggle free. 

“Bendy, please, please, let me go,” Henry begged, panic making his voice waver. “Please don’t do this.” 

“We have to save you,” Bendy whispered. He didn’t regret catching Henry, but he regretted how scared the man was. 

It’d be okay. They’d practiced. 

Bendy took a step forward, away from the door, bodily forcing Henry back. 

His poor Creator began breathing faster. “You’re only going to end up hurting me, please, _please_ just— if you let me go, I promise to come back! I wouldn’t stay away forever, please, you can’t keep me here!” His small body trembled violently, and he yanked harder and harder at his wrists.

Instead of fighting him on it, Bendy allowed himself to be tugged forward by Henry’s weak, human strength, going deeper into the studio. 

“You don’t need to be afraid,” Bendy said. “We’d never hurt you.” He reached out with his free hand, intending to offer comfort to the frightened man. He whimpered instead, when Henry jerked away so hard he nearly smacked into a support column. 

Shaking his head, Henry laughed. Bendy frowned; it wasn’t a happy laugh, like it should be. His Creator should always be happy. 

“I think you’d never intentionally hurt me, and that you actually believe it won’t. But,” Henry tried to twist his arms free, over and over and over, unceasing, “you have to realize, please, you have to see it. Bendy— humans aren’t meant to be toons! The others, can’t you see it, they’re hurting. What you’ve done to them, it’s causing them pain.” 

Bendy didn’t think Henry even noticed that he’d begun crying.

“ _Please_ , I don’t want to— I don’t want to know what that feels like. Please don’t do that to me, Bendy, I’m begging you.” 

He looked so scared, so small. His wrists— such delicate constructs of flesh and blood— could so easily be snapped or shattered if Bendy just squeezed enough. A drop of only a few feet had left Henry limping and weak.

“It’d be effortless to break you,” Bendy whispered— though it wasn’t a new revelation— crowding closer to Henry, who stumbled away until his back collided with a wall. He watched his Creator throw a glare over his shoulder at the barrier, like it had betrayed him. “You must understand. Humans bleed so easily.”

Henry tilted his chin up at Bendy. “You’d know, wouldn’t you.” He flinched violently when Bendy dropped to his knees before him. 

With his immense height, the action brought Bendy to be nearly eye-level with Henry. “I know you’re frightened—” Henry started to speak, but Bendy quickly raised his hand and covered his mouth, barely needing two fingers to silence him— “and I hate that. But what we’re doing is for your own good. And I know the process isn’t the most comfortable,” he admitted, “but it will be over quickly, and then you’ll be perfect.” 

Closing his eyes in evident despair, Henry shook his head. Tears slipped down his cheeks, and he slouched as far away as Bendy as he could get, trapped as he was. 

“It’ll be okay soon. And we truly do know what we’re doing now. We had so much practice, Henry, really, you don’t have to worry about that.”

A sob jerked in Henry’s throat. His arms went limp in Bendy’s grasp. 

Bendy smiled. “There you go. Just relax, all right? We’ve taken care of everything.” 

Now that he was in proper contact with Henry, and the man seemed to have calmed down a bit, Bendy took a moment to concentrate on taking some loose ink from a puddle on the floor and bind it to his will. At a mere thought, it stretched into a secure band encircling Henry’s wrists. Only Bendy himself would be able to remove it. If he’d been able, he would’ve used it to create a safe trap for his Creator at the beginning of their little chase, but the ink only remained under his power in relatively close proximity, and the studio had more than one exit. 

Henry didn’t react as Bendy stood and gently released him. His eyes remained squeezed shut, though he started to slide down the wall. 

Bendy tutted and scooped him up. This time, he cradled Henry in front of him— even bound, he didn’t want to risk having any part of Henry out of his sight. 

“I think you’ll like it,” he said as he started down a hallway. “You loved creating all of us so much, and you’ve always seemed to know exactly how toons work. You’ll take to being one, I’m sure, better than any of the others.”

“Did you kill all of them?” Henry asked, his voice thick. “Everyone who worked here— did any of them escape?” 

“We _used_ all of them,” Bendy lightly corrected him. “Once we realized that you had left us, we forced ourselves out of the animations. It was an imperfect process, so none of the three of us were on-model.” He brightened, imagining the future. “But you’ll be able to help us!”

“Why would I want to? You’re going to kill me.” 

Bendy paused at an intersection to look down at Henry. His eyes, looking dull and dead, remained focused on the ink wrapped around his wrists.

“I know you’ll want to help us. I know you do even now, when you’re so very frightened.”

Henry scoffed, though it was such an empty sound. “You don’t know—”

“I do!” Bendy nearly growled the words, regretting his vehemence when Henry’s eyes snapped shut as he winced. “I’m sorry— I didn’t mean to scare you. There’s nothing you could ever say or do that would make me harm you.” He knew Henry didn’t trust him— not now, not yet— but he hoped the man would at least take that as truth. No matter what crimes Henry believed Bendy to be guilty of, lying wasn’t among them. 

He waited to see how Henry would respond. Acceptance? False acknowledgement? Or perhaps he would test the truth of Bendy’s promise.

Finally lifting his head to stare directly at where Bendy’s eyes would be, hidden under the ink covering his face, Henry slowly whispered, “I hate you.”

Ah, testing him, then. Bendy beamed down at Henry and cuddled him closer.

“No, you don’t. You don’t hate me, as much as I think you wish you did. When you saw me for the first time, when you figured out who I was, I could read it so clearly in your eyes. Your excitement, your happiness. Even now, you can’t forget those feelings.”

He started walking again, feeling Henry shake his head in pointless denial. 

“I know you, Creator. I’ve known you most of your life. I know it hurts you to see us like this, and that you’ll help us once you’re able. I know you will always love us, even when you wish you could hate us. I can feel it. That love for your creations.” 

Whatever Henry had planned on saying in response to that was lost as Bendy turned a corner and Henry realized exactly where they were. 

He lurched so violently in Bendy’s arms, the toon nearly lost his grip on him, and he didn’t stop thrashing as he cried out, “No! No no _no!_ Please, please, no, Bendy— not there, please don’t make me go in there again!” 

The level of his distress was beyond even what he’d shown in response to being caught, and that combined with his frantic words brought Bendy to an abrupt halt. Ahead of them, Joey Drew’s corpse waited. 

“Not there!” Henry begged him, over and over, interspersed with _no_ and _please_. He twisted around and buried his face in Bendy’s chest, shaking violently. “I can’t see him again, please! Don’t make me!”

It was a simple request, one that Bendy had no issue with fulfilling. The only problem was that they needed to go in there. The easiest solution would be to call for Boris or Alice to come and take care of the body. However…

“Henry,” Bendy said gently. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go and take Joey elsewhere if you promise me something.”

“Please, Bendy, I can’t—”

“I’m going to set you down in a different room, but only if you promise not to try and leave while I’m distracted.”

“…And if I can’t promise that?”

“Then I’ll have to bring you with me when I deal with him.”

Henry winced. He didn’t answer. 

Bendy watched him carefully as he said, “I need you to promise, Henry. And please, don’t try to lie to me.”

As much as he didn’t want to think of himself as Henry’s captor, he knew that was how the man saw him. By offering Henry a choice in this, he would hopefully show his Creator that he wasn’t heartless, while also better establishing that sacrifices must be made to avoid a worse scenario.

The tenseness in Henry’s limbs fled from his body, and Bendy stifled his smile. That was, without a doubt, the feel of someone giving in.

“Okay,” Henry whispered. “Okay, I won’t try anything, just— please don’t make me see him.” 

Bendy turned around and went down the opposite hallway, into the room just around the corner. He carefully settled Henry’s rag-doll body in a chair, crouching down in front of him. Gripping his arms, Bendy waited until Henry raised his head to look at him.

“I need to hear you say it, Creator.”

Taking a deep, shuddery breath, Henry quietly said, “I promise not to run.” 

Bendy beamed. Good, this was good. He stood slowly, leaning in to give Henry a gentle head-butt, pleased beyond measure when his Creator didn’t flinch. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, not bothering to hide the happiness in his voice.

He waited until Henry gave him a little nod of acknowledgement before heading to the room bearing Joey Drew’s corpse. 

The experiment Bendy used him for had been messy, but in large part successful— at least, as far as practice had gone. Though the man was well and truly dead, not existing in any of the secondary toons they’d brought to life using the employees, his sacrifice was greatly appreciated. 

But Joey had served his purpose, and now Bendy needed this room, with its tilting operating table connected to a pipe full of ink. 

He carried Joey’s body to the man’s own office, setting it on the floor with the respect he knew Henry would want for his old friend. Once Henry had gone through the process that would save him— and had time to recover both physically and mentally— they would see what he wanted to do with all the bodies that hadn’t survive conversion. Perhaps they could have a little burial in the open land behind the studio for all the humans who had sacrificed their lives so the toons could learn how to best save their Creator. 

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to get Henry to lie down on the operating table with Joey’s messy blood splatter still there, and that he didn’t have the time nor the means to remove the stains, Bendy managed to find a few tablecloths in a storage closet. 

Spending the extra minutes spreading them out would technically give Henry more time to try and escape, if he chose to break his promise; but on the other hand, it might also provide more time where Henry would resist the urge to leave. 

This little exercise would be telling.

Once he finished covering the table— which he’d returned to its horizontal position— and was fully satisfied with the result, Bendy headed back down the corridor, to the room that Henry should still be waiting for him in. 

The moment of truth. Had Henry kept his promise?

Bendy turned the corner and felt his legs almost go wobbly in relief. Henry was exactly where Bendy had left him, just now with his legs pulled up to his chest and his face tucked into the little pocket between them and his body.

Joy suffused Bendy’s entire being. His Creator had stayed! 

Henry looked up right as Bendy reached for him, and he startled so badly, he would’ve fallen completely off the chair had Bendy not caught him. Once he was sure that Henry was steady, Bendy pulled him to the edge of his seat as he himself dropped to his knees to better curl around him. Henry wiggled a bit, presumably trying to push free, but in the end, he fell still and allowed the embrace. 

“Oh, Creator. I’m so happy,” Bendy said, his eyes tearing up. Everything was going wonderfully.

Not relaxing, Henry huffed. “That makes one of us.” 

“You’ll be happy soon, too,” Bendy told him. “Once it’s over and done with, and you won’t ever have to worry about anything ever again, then you’ll be happy.” 

“You’re wrong. You’re _wrong_.” 

Bendy gave the man a little squeeze and asked lowly, “Who are you trying to convince?”

Henry’s body tensed up even more, and he began struggling again. “Get off me!” 

Without fully releasing him, Bendy pulled back just enough to press his forehead against Henry’s, pinning him there with a palm against the back of his skull. Henry glared at him, his chest heaving in anger. 

“You have to accept this, Creator. It’s inevitable.” 

“No. I don’t.” 

Bendy searched his eyes, and then beamed. “I think you already have, at least a little. That’s why you didn’t try to leave. Because deep down, you want to stay.”  
  
“No,” Henry said, frantically trying to shake his head, though Bendy didn’t allow him any space for movement. “No, I just— what would I do? What _could_ I do? Even if I left, I’ll never forget what I saw. How— how could I come back from that? And, and would I have to keep running? I thought if I could just get out of here, I’d be safe, but that’s… that’s not it, is it? You’d never stop. Not until you had me. This was going to happen from the moment I stepped through the front door.”

Bendy stared at him for a moment, his smile growing. “See? You do accept it.” He continued over Henry’s weak attempts at protesting, “There is nowhere you could’ve gone that we wouldn’t have found you.” He brushed his fingers over Henry’s cheek— still human flesh, still vulnerable, still so easily broken. “This was destiny.” 

Henry sagged in Bendy’s grip, his anger visibly draining away.

“Good. That’s it,” Bendy said as he stood. He patiently coaxed Henry to his feet. “C’mon. It’s time.” Bendy gestured at the room’s exit, but Henry didn’t move.

“Wait— you’re not…?”

Smiling, Bendy reached out and cupped Henry’s cheek with one hand, thrilled when he only flinched away a moment later, like an afterthought. “These are your last moments in that body,” he explained. “You choose: I’ll either carry you, or you can walk.”

Henry stared at the doorway like he expected it to attack him. “You’d make me walk to my own death?”

“Not your death,” Bendy corrected his Creator, “your salvation. And if you’d rather not—” He stepped forward, ready to pick Henry up again, but he lurched away before Bendy could grab him. 

“Don’t. Just—” Henry spun around, putting his back to Bendy as his breathing started to pick up again. 

On some distant level, Bendy understood. The realization that it was finally _time_ was a heavy one, and though he knew it was a good thing, he also knew that Henry thought it wasn’t. Henry still saw it as a painful end of his life. 

“It’ll be okay,” Bendy whispered. “Soon it’ll all be perfect.” 

A full body shiver wracked Henry’s fragile human body, and a gasping sob burst out of his mouth. He raised his bound hands to his face, and he nearly collapsed to his knees. 

He didn’t, though, because Bendy caught him. Bendy would always catch him. 

Without forcing Henry off his feet entirely, Bendy bore most of his weight out the door and into the hallway. They were so close. 

They moved slowly, Bendy remaining whole-heartedly patient as Henry mindlessly tried to resist. At some point, Henry must’ve looked up at their destination, because his distress multiplied, nearing hyperventilation as he futilely twisted around. Bendy gently shushed him without pausing in his forward urging. When Henry didn’t show any signs of calming down, he carefully shifted one of his arms to continue supporting his body while being able to cover his mouth and nose to help regulate his breathing.

It’d all be over soon. 

By the time Bendy guided Henry over the threshold, his Creator had reverted back into frantic and mindless begging, repetitions of _please don’t_ and _no_ and _I hate you, stop it, please stop_ spilling uncontrollably out of his half-blocked mouth. 

Absently humming the tune of one of his favorite songs, Bendy lifted Henry up onto the operating table. “Will you lay down on your own?” he asked, one hand securing Henry’s arms.

In response, Henry tried to twist away, kicking out and thrashing. 

No matter. Bendy hadn’t really expected Henry to go that easily anyway. It was simple to force him back, pinning him with one arm while Bendy undid the wrist straps. Without allowing Henry the chance to realize his temporary freedom, Bendy dissolved the ink binding him and smoothly secured the padded metal band around first one side, then the other. 

“Let me go!” Henry cried, yanking against the restraints. “Bendy, _please!_ ” He strained away from Bendy, but no evasion could stop his legs from being similarly locked in place. 

Henry’s struggles led him to banging his head against the table, and Bendy quickly pressed him down by the forehead. 

“If you do that again,” he said seriously, looking Henry in the eyes, “I have a strap for your throat. I don’t want to use it, Creator, but I will if I have to.” 

Squeezing his eyes shut against his tears, Henry jerked his head away from Bendy without answering. 

“Good,” Bendy said softly, smiling. “The less you struggle, the less it will hurt, y’know.” 

Bendy went about his final preparations as Henry continued to gasp for breath, trembling so hard that his restrains rattled. In a last attempt to calm him down, Bendy decided to explain part of the process Henry was about to go through. Sometimes, knowing what to expect made something less scary. 

“It won’t take long. I know how best to do this now, after so much practice. It’s really not so hard, once you know what you’re doing. There’s a pipe connected to the back of the table you’re laying on, full of ink. We made it just for this. Once you’re ready, it will flood your body, and it will change you.”

“Ink doesn’t work like that,” Henry whispered, his voice hoarse. He stared at the wall with **WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?** painted on it. “Why did you write that?” 

Bendy spared the words a glance. He’d written those while angry, furious that Joey had tried to keep Henry from Bendy, tried to stop them all from practicing. The man had called him crazy for thinking it was possible, to turn a human into a toon with such a basic procedure. _You’d need complex equipment_ , he’d said, sneering to hide his fear. _You’d need a machine._  

It’d been Bendy’s great pleasure to set Joey Drew aside for a very specific sort of practice: removing the heart from a human’s chest. If he’d been a bit more rough about it than he’d be with Henry in a moment, no one had to know.

He’d let go of his anger at Joey once Henry had arrived. Knowing that part of his fury had lingered during his first interaction with his Creator— affecting his smile and speech— shamed him. 

“Joey didn’t believe me when I told him what I planned to do,” he finally said. Henry wouldn’t want to know the details. Brightening, he focused on Henry’s first words. “And as for the ink, it does work like that, under specific conditions.” 

He turned to step up to the side of the table, holding a carefully wrapped bundle. Knowing that Henry was watching, Bendy slowly pulled away the cloth— an employee’s shirt, since it wasn’t like they’d need it any time soon— revealing a lovingly crafted, intricately detailed human heart entirely made of ink. 

Bendy knew the moment Henry caught on. 

“You can’t,” he said, eyes wide. “Bendy! No, no, you can’t, please! That— it’ll kill me! You’ll kill me!” Henry renewed his struggles, throwing everything he had into his futile attempts to break free. Once, twice, three times his head banged against the table.

Bendy frowned. “Henry,” he warned him, lightly placing his hand over Henry’s throat. 

“You said you wouldn’t hurt me!” his Creator screamed, twisting and turning without lifting his head. “You promised!” 

“And I don’t want to, and that’s why I have another choice for you, if you’d just calm down.” 

A broken, hysterical laugh burst out of Henry. “Calm down? You just told me you’re going to rip my heart out, and you want me to calm down?” he cried.

“If you can’t, I’ll make the decision for you.” 

That seemed to get through to his Creator, since Henry went rigid and silent, though his chest still heaved. “What is it?” he asked after taking a few deep breaths. 

“I don’t want to hurt you, and there are two ways I can prevent you from feeling the pain. Your first option is that I knock you out, just long enough to begin the process. Once the ink starts flowing, you’ll be fine,” Bendy said.

“How would you do it? You can’t— there’s no way you have medicine for that.” 

Bendy briefly tightened his hand around Henry’s neck. 

Henry gulped. “Oh. What’s the second option?” 

“I would put a tube down your throat and start the process that way, with ink before anything else. We haven’t been able to figure out why, but it seemed to help block the pain during practice. Take a moment to think about it.” 

While he gave his Creator a minute to decide, Bendy went back to humming the song from earlier as he turned Henry’s soon-to-be heart over in his hands. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling at it. He could hardly believe that it was finally time. 

Henry shifted minutely, and Bendy instantly returned his attention to him. “Well?” 

After visibly gathering himself, Henry said, “I’d rather be unconscious.” 

Setting the heart down on the table where Henry couldn’t reach it, Bendy leaned over Henry. “Are you ready, Creator?” 

“No. _No_ — I’m not— please, don’t do this—”

Bendy squeezed in just the right places to cut off his airflow without causing unnecessary damage. He’d practiced, after all. 

He watched Henry fade away, his eyes filled with panic and tears. But Bendy had been right before: there was no hatred, even now. 

“It’s all right,” he whispered as Henry’s eyes began to close. “When you wake up, you’ll be perfect.” 

Once he was sure Henry was unconscious, he set to work. Getting the ink in him as soon as possible was key in the procedure, for the best healing, quickest conversion, and least pain. Holding the heart in one hand, he tilted the table up a bit. It was time to begin. 

Blood and bones, messy human flesh. Cracking, breaking; gushing, draining. So easily torn apart. A moment of regard after removing the now useless organ, dripping red. Flimsy and weak it might be, but this was the heart that loved Bendy and the other toons, the heart that had given them Henry. He reverently set it on a corner shelf. 

The new heart clicked into place seamlessly, just as Bendy’d hoped it would. A flick of a switch and a shove of the pipe, and Henry’s mostly dead human body began to fill with the ink it needed. 

Not a moment of error, unlike every other person they’d experimented on. But then, that was before Bendy’d perfected the process. Bits and pieces from each attempt were combined to reach this exact moment.

Delighted, Bendy watched through Henry’s open ribcage as his Creator’s body began to change. The red turned to black as the ink spread, his heart’s initial sluggish beats increasing to speed up the transformation. 

Perfect. Absolutely perfect. 

When Henry blearily stirred a long hour later, Bendy had long since freed him of his restraints. Now, Bendy sat on the table, cradling his Creator’s new body. The conversion had gone wonderfully, mixing Henry’s existing human traits with Henry’s own cartoon drawing style. Bendy was extremely pleased, especially since Henry had retained his color, unlike all the others. 

His eyes, when he opened them, were pie-cut. They were still the same blue as before, with a cartoony pupil in the center. Henry blinked a few times before shifting to look at the rest of himself. 

For the most part, he wasn’t so different. Simplified, yes, and a bit rubberhose-noodley too, but he was still recognizably himself. Bendy could only hope that Henry would see it that way as well. 

Henry slowly moved to press the palm of his hand— the one not trapped against Bendy’s body— against his own chest, over his heart. “I’m alive,” he whispered after finding the rhythmic thumping. 

“I told you it’d be okay,” Bendy said, beaming. “You’re perfect now.”

It took Henry a long few moments to react, but the wait was worth every second to Bendy, as his Creator offered him a shaky, tentative smile. 

• • • • • 

Time passed. 

Just as Bendy had predicted, Henry took to being a toon like a fish to water. Though he was initially shy around all the others, Bendy managed to coax him into interactions often enough for Henry to gradually become more comfortable around them, though anyone could tell he preferred Bendy. 

His mind, Bendy had discovered only a day or so after changing him, would need more time than his body to match up to what it had been pre-toonification. Before that happened, Henry was nearly like a child, and he only seemed to remember the details of what led to him becoming a toon in his dreams, always forgotten once he’d truly woken. 

The first few nights, Bendy had jerked awake by the sounds of his screams, and Henry wouldn’t calm down again unless he was being hugged. A week hadn’t even passed by the time Bendy began each night already holding him, which did wonders for the nightmares. 

Finally, after more than two months, Henry froze in place one unremarkable morning. He quietly excused himself, and no one was able to find him for the rest of the afternoon. 

That night, he screamed and cried and pounded his still-small fists against Bendy’s chest until he collapsed from it all, sobbing quietly. Though he flinched when Bendy scooped him up, he didn’t protest their nightly hugs and cuddles. He knew the truth now, he remembered everything.

But he recovered. The two months of being blissfully ignorant didn’t disappear with the resurgence of his memories, and Bendy knew it tore at his Creator, that being around them caused him equal amounts fear and happiness. Bendy didn’t know what happened— what changed, what thoughts might’ve passed through Henry’s mind— but one day, it was like he just let go of the horror he occasionally felt. 

The nightmares began to disappear, and bit by bit, Henry finally began to embrace his new reality. 

Time passed. 

And there came a moment when Bendy turned a corner and quite accidentally stumbled upon a scene that he would swear stopped his heart. 

Henry stood at the exit, haloed by sunlight from the open door. 

Bendy’s entire body tensed. After all this time, was Henry finally going to try to escape? They’d been doing so well, and he dreaded to think of the potential setbacks should he be forced to drag Henry back to the studio. If he was suddenly determined to leave, they’d have to start treating him more like a prisoner, and Bendy would do anything to avoid that. 

No matter how much he wanted to interrupt, to ask Henry what he was doing, he had to see what choice his Creator would make on his own. In silence, he stood and waited. 

Henry fidgeted, leaning forward a bit, perhaps to look around outside. His hand clenched and relaxed every few seconds around the knob. Tilting his head down, Henry shuffled his feet and then took a step back to slowly close the door.

Bendy watched Henry stare straight ahead for a minute before inching backwards along the hallway leading to the exit. With a decisive little nod, Henry turned around and immediately gasped at the sight of Bendy approaching him. 

In the cartoony rubberhose style, Henry was the slightest bit shorter than he’d been as a human, which meant that when Bendy dropped to his knees, he was still taller than him— allowing Bendy to comfortably engulf Henry in a hug, even as his Creator stuttered. He fell silent as Bendy gently pressed Henry’s head to his shoulder, shushing him. 

Though the words had been incomplete, Bendy knew they’d been something along the lines of how he hadn’t actually been considering running away. Times like this, Henry’s old fear seemed to mix with the childishness becoming a toon had given him, and that meant he was perhaps expecting punishment for even thinking about leaving. 

He’d _never_ hurt Henry, not for anything.

“Please, tell me what you were thinking,” Bendy whispered. When Henry hesitated, going tense in Bendy’s arms, he reassured him, “I’ve told you before, Henry. There’s nothing you could ever say or do that would make me even consider hurting you.” 

“I know,” Henry said quietly, “but I forget sometimes.”

Staring at the door— closed, Henry had closed it, he’d chosen to stay!— over Henry’s shoulder, Bendy smiled. “Then I’ll make sure to remind you every day until you never forget it again. Will you tell me what happened?” 

After a moment of silence, Henry finally admitted, “I was gonna leave. I thought for some reason that I had to, like that was right somehow.” He shook his head without lifting it from Bendy’s shoulder. “But I was just bein’ silly.” 

Nearly whining— not at the thought of Henry wanting to go, but at the wonderful truth that Henry knew he belonged here— Bendy barely managed to gather himself to ask, “What made you realize it was silly?” He had to know.

“Because I don’t want to leave. This is home, but I think I only realized that when I was actually about to run away.”

Bendy thought about the other toons, who Henry hadn’t hesitated in helping. About how he’d fixed everyone up, one by one, with all the care and love he’d given them as their animator. About how Henry had taken away their pain and suffering, about how Henry hadn’t flinched away from anyone in weeks now, about how happy everyone had become once their Creator was finally home where he belonged.

To hear Henry confirm it gave him a joy beyond anything Bendy had felt before.

“You don’t want to escape?” Bendy asked, because he had to be sure. 

Henry nodded, but Bendy leaned back and tilted his chin up until their eyes— his own being visible thanks to Henry’s efforts— met. “I need to hear you say it,” he whispered hoarsely. He imagined the last time he begged that from Henry, and wondered if Henry was remembering the promise that sealed his fate as surely as anything. 

Henry smiled, small but wonderfully genuine. Not sad or scared like it’d been just after the conversion, not the unsure one as he’d healed, not the shaky one as he’d finally started allowing himself to acknowledge how natural it felt to be a toon, but real and kind and exactly like the smile their beloved Creator should always have. 

“I don’t want to escape,” he told Bendy, “because there’s nothing to escape from.” 

Unable to suppress his whine, because _finally_ , _finally_ , Henry had admitted it out loud, Bendy curled back over Henry and squeezed his eyes shut against the building tears. “I’m so happy,” he said. 

And oh, how his heart soared when Henry replied without hesitation, “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so happy with how this turned out, and if you enjoyed the twisted fluffiness of it, I have an idea in mind for another story (not following these two, though) that would potentially have a similar feel to it. Let me know if you're interested! :)
> 
> To everyone who was looking forward to this: did I meet your expectations? Let me know what you guys thought and all that, because as always, I love hearing from you! :D


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